Monday, March 9, 2015

Just over 10 years ago my first book came out- Government Marketing Best Practices. Self-published in January, 2005, it sold over 9,000 copies, and I still get people asking where they can buy it (hint: it is out of date!)What many don't remember is that the seminar came out before the book. The first Government Marketing Best Practices seminar was in 2002. The seminar is still around, and unlike the book, it is up-to-date.The rules of marketing to the government morph with each web 2.0 nuance,evolving procurement regulations, the growing/shrinking field of players and more.One small example- SmartPay, the government charge card. When I wrote the first book, SmartPay was still a great avenue for open market vendors. This is no longer the case, as the SmartPay cardholder training program has driven many of the cardholders to preferred contracts.Does this mean SmartPay doesn't work in the open market? No, it still works, but sales for most open market vendors have declined by as much as 50% over the past several years.Want an example of a bigger change? Let's take a quick look at content marketing. Two of the fastest growing contractors over the past decade are immixGroup and Carahsoft, both value-added distributors (VADs). If you look at their respective web sites (www.immixgroup.com and www.carahsoft.com) you will notice that both use massive amounts of educational content to create qualified traffic.immixGroup uses a robust combination of blogs, enews, white papers, webinars and more.Carahsoft uses webinars perhaps more than any other company in the market, and has grown organically (no acquisitions) faster than any other company in this market.If you need to know what can work for your company, the next- and updated for 2015 - Government Marketing Best Practices seminar is April 9 in Columbia MD.

Regardless of what you sell, having the best products, services and technologies is NOT ENOUGH. You have to reach and convince the buyers and influencers.

See current examples of what is working in marketing to government buyers and influencers:

- the state of traditional advertising when focusing on the government market- space ads, broadcast, PR, white papers, events and more.

- How does your marketing support the sales efforts for GSA Schedules, IDIQs and GWACs?

- Does your marketing act as a lead generation tool?

- What are the best methods for positioning your company as a thought leader in one of the emerging areas: Cloud, cyber, big data, LEED/green, mobile, and more.

- Which web 2.0 tools) are best for your company - blogging, podcasts, video, webinars, Twitter, social networks?